What the chair costs you
So far I've talked mostly about risks measured in large studies. Those matter, but they're abstract, and nobody ever got off a sofa because of a hazard ratio. The costs you can feel are nearer to hand, and this chapter is about them.
The first is range. There's a list of things you do without thinking about them and another list of things you've quietly stopped doing, and items have been moving from the first list to the second for some years. You used to take the stairs at the multi-storey and now you take the lift. Getting down on the floor with Alfie used to be nothing, and now you weigh it up and sometimes stay on the sofa and direct operations from there. You'd have carried the heavy shopping from the far end of the car park, and now you circle for a nearer space. You didn't decide to give any of these up. Each time, the thing had become slightly uncomfortable, and an easier option was available.
Each item dropped removes some of the movement that was keeping you able to do it, which goes back to chapter 3. Take the lift for a year and the stairs get harder, which confirms that the lift was the right call. This is how a life narrows in middle age. Nothing dramatic happens. Small things are given up one at a time, and each seems sensible when it happens.
The second cost is energy, which chapter 4 covered. I'd add one thing. Low energy makes more than exercise unappealing. It takes the shine off the evening class you thought about, the walk with a friend on Sunday, the garden, and the weekend away that seems like a lot of effort. People with a high tally often describe themselves as having become a homebody. Some of them have. Others are simply short of the energy that would make going out feel worth it.
The third is what the age story does to your expectations. If you believe at fifty-four that stiffness and tiredness are your age arriving, you'll expect more of both at sixty and plan accordingly. You'll choose the holiday with less walking and the bungalow over the house with stairs. Those are reasonable choices for someone in decline, and they help bring the decline about.
The fourth cost is further off and more serious, and I'll be brief about it because I don't want to frighten anyone. The strength you have at seventy-five and eighty decides some large things, such as whether you can get out of a chair without help, climb your own stairs, catch yourself when you trip, and stay in your own home. That strength is built or lost in the decades before. The NHS guidelines for older adults ask for activities that improve strength, balance and flexibility at least twice a week, for that reason. A thirteen-hour tally through your fifties and sixties draws down the reserve you'll need then.
A fair objection is that plenty of people sit all day and seem fine, and that your father sat in his armchair and lived to eighty-six. Both are true. These are averages and tendencies, and I can't tell you what will happen to you. But you can look at the costs in this chapter without any statistics, because you can see them in your own week. Ask which list the stairs are on, and the floor, and whether you've begun planning around your body in ways you didn't five years ago. Those answers are about you in particular, and you can check them today.
The last cost is the noise itself. It's a small thing, but it matters. Every time you stand up with a grunt, you tell yourself a short story about getting old. You're hearing that story a dozen times a day, from yourself, and the argument of this book is that it's at least half wrong.